Germany Exporting Its Sick And Elderly To Foreign Old Age Homes

For wealthy but aging industrialized nations seeking austerity, are the old, diseased, and disabled the export of the future? The Guardian reports:

Growing numbers of elderly and sick Germans are being sent overseas for long-term care in retirement and rehabilitation centres because of rising costs and falling standards in Germany. The move, which has seen thousands of retired Germans rehoused in homes in eastern Europe and Asia, has been severely criticised by social welfare organisations who have called it “inhumane deportation”.

But with increasing numbers of Germans unable to afford the growing costs of retirement homes, and an ageing and shrinking population, the number expected to be sent abroad in the next few years is only likely to rise. Experts describe it as a “time bomb”.

“We simply cannot let those people who built Germany up to be what it is, who put their backbones into it all their lives, be deported,” said the president of Sozialverband Deutschland (VdK), a German socio-political advisory group. “It is inhumane.”

Researchers found an estimated 7,146 German pensioners living in retirement homes in Hungary in 2011. More than 3,000 had been sent to homes in the Czech Republic, and there were more than 600 in Slovakia. There are also unknown numbers in Spain, Greece and Ukraine. Thailand and the Philippines are also attracting increasing numbers.

A country that says “we can’t afford to take care of our elderly” is under the domination of a wealthy class whose battle cry is “NO NEW TAXES”, which means “we refuse to pay our share of the expenses of the society that makes it possible for us to accumulate wealth”.

Haystack

Well, they were always saying they needed living space…

Matt Staggs

…

Haystack

Whew. I was afraid everyone would miss my clever acquisition of the low-hanging fruit.

BuzzCoastin

if I ever get sent to an old age home
I hope it’s in Thailand and not Hungry or the Czech Republic